HD 'Flamers'
by tigersilver
Summary: Drabble: fondue and fits of fury. EWE.


Author: **tigersilver**  
>Rating: PG-13<br>Word Count: 1500  
>Drabble: fondue and fits of fury. EWE.<p>

**HD 'Flamers' **

"Don't walk away."

Draco's shoulders hunched as they turned, presenting his spine and the broad beams of his straight back to Harry as he prepared to march off; the tendons that held his head at that trademark arrogant angle stiffened. Harry knew he'd been heard; surely he'd been heard, but…Draco was a stubborn arse and he couldn't afford not to say it again.

"_Don't_ walk away, Draco. Don't you dare!"

There. That was better. That was demanding—insistent. Not to be ignored, even by a wanker with a stupid complex. Harry kept his eyes trained on his barely-there view Draco's lips: thin, pink, dried out from snogging; as expected, they parted, as if to speak. He waited for ever so long—ten seconds, maybe more; it was endless, really-but there was no verbal response nor even the slightest bob of sharp chin in acknowledgement. Only a darting red tongue tip soothing over a chapped, bowed upper lip—the same lip he'd been nibbling on none too gently until Draco pulled his most recent shit fit.

Over nothing much in particular—a weedy, moony-eyed waitress and stray Floo number dropped in his lap in passing. Nothing that mattered, not really. Not as if it didn't happen all the time and to both of them, for chrissake!

He was…unmanageable, sometimes-Draco. Harry's lover. Especially for a man far more used to being managed than managing. Harry had to rely on blind instinct and blind instinct clearly demanded he yank the git back 'round to face the music and thus allow Harry to irritate him further; really, _really_ pull his chain, rattle his cage like the dickens.

Rub it in, fuck it—how the world wanted a piece of him (them, really) and Draco had to put up with it or get over his own self or whatever worked to smooth these little incidents over. 'Cause unreasoning jealousy was so passé in an ex-Slytherin and besides, Harry wouldn't know how to cheat even if presented a bloody manual!

"Draco."

Good sense chimed in—a paltry, feeble whisper—and lisped that Harry should let it go. That it wasn't worth it; that Draco wasn't worth it. There were easier blokes by the buckets; no one should ever have to suffer this sort of abuse. Harry didn't need to be made mockery of; he didn't require to be ignored by the man he'd handed his heart to, wholesale, no take backs.

"Draco. Did you hear me?"

Of course he'd been heard, loud and clear. Harry knew _that_. And of course Draco wasn't _really_ going off anywhere…it wasn't as though this whole scenario wasn't far too familiar. Harry just wished his git would play out his bloody insecurities with fewer theatrics—preferably without an audience. Because Neville looked to be ready to skin him for taxidermy and Ginny was quietly fulminating, her hair nearly sizzling. And the entire fucking restaurant of trendy folk was avidly watching Draco turn his back on Harry Potter, gawping.

"Let me hex him, Harry!" Gin-appearing mysteriously at Harry's elbow joint—took the opportunity to poke a supporting elbow into his ribs, eyes sparkling with a frightening fierce form of minatory sisterly protectiveness. Harry shrugged it off, casually enough; _no_, thanks. He didn't want the git's far-too-pointy nose stuffed up with gross Bogeys. He'd be the one kissing him, later.

Harry _knew_ that. Just as he was positive beyond certain this would blow over.

"No. Let him go," Neville contradicted, glaring from his seat at their table for four. "Enough's enough, mate." For when Harry and Draco had stormed from the Men's a moment ago Nev had been his usual self: calm and composed, as befitted a newly staid Herbology prof at Flamel Uni. But his chin had firmed as his head snapped to follow Draco's stormy progress and his eyes had gone grimly stern. Harry just knew Nev wouldn't hesitate to take Draco's perfect kneecaps right out from under him if he dared venture one step further toward that plated glass door. And Draco would regret it, Harry knew; Neville would make sure to humiliate him—for daring to walk away from Harry.

But Harry didn't want that. He could hear Draco's teeth grinding even from where he stood poised to run after; his arms flung out wide and beseeching, his miserable face stretched in a pleading rictus, his forlorn heart thumping frantically away in his chest like a drum. He didn't want that; didn't care to be that helpless and stupidlyfeeble, needing his friends to hunt his ne'er-do-well, tempestuous lover down for him.

"Why should I?" It was a dark growl, flung over his collar carelessly, and blond locks flopped restlessly when Draco asked it. "Why should I even bother, Potter?"

"Because—!" Harry shot back immediately, tossing his head furiously. "Because…!" and then stopped, when words failed. Full halt, because how does one person confess to being lost without the other? He didn't know the words, the way the sorry tune went. He only knew the melody of melancholy, slowly transcending all the bright in his heart that had arrived along with Draco. "I—just," he managed to gasp, after a moment spent swallowing. "Draco."

It had to be that: one word, two syllables, a name. An unusual one, by Muggle standards. The only one in the world like it, just as the git was the only git in the world who could do this to Harry. That is—make his eyes wet in public; send his mates into a gnashing-teeth, silently overbearing sort of fury on his behalf—render an entire restaurant full of fiendishly curious diners hushed and hungry as jackals for the next unfurling step of this melodrama they'd embarked upon together—he and Draco.

"Then," the voice snapped grudgingly. "If it means so much to you, make me. Make…me, Potter."

So quiet it was in main room of the Caerphilly Cheese Canteen—that alarmingly trendy new 'hotspot' for the younger Wizarding set, conveniently right off Diagon in the newly updated Knockturn, or so the reviews read—a single brass fondue ladle hitting the floor would've been deafening. But no one so much as inhaled, nor swallowed their neatly apportioned chunks of fruit or sourdough. No melted cheddar dared drip and shatter the breathlessly overflowing silence—which was how Harry heard that little break in Draco's voice so clearly. That hitch, that telltale gulp, as if exiting a loo—_and_ a convivial evening out with friends—_and_ a bloody_ life_ they'd built together, he and Harry—were the absolute_ last_ thing Draco Malfoy would _ever_ want to be caught doing.

"Merlin, Draco!"

Harry gasped with relief as he launched himself forward, across that intervening space. Like a rocket, like a missile, attuned to one target—the only other soul on the planet whose bloody interior bits matched up to his own so fucking perfectly, so utterly exactly, their fit was seamless.

"Harry! Potter—you fool!"

Draco, as always, possessed flawless timing: he knew exactly when to spin on a heel and catch his attacker. Both arms wide and welcoming, then tight and constricting—and if the sloppy kisses spent freely across Harry's chin and cheeks and forehead meant anything at all, then all was forgiven.

"Idiot," Draco snarled fondly. "Don't do that, arse. I've told you!"

Without a single word said, the pall lifted. Silverware clinked; Ginny and Neville could be glimpsed toasting glasses of superior chardonnay and grinning like maniacs. The majestic maître 'd stopped his interrupted descent in their direction—no doubt he'd been thinking to toss their arses out the the door for making all that ruckus in the loo—casually settled his snowy white arm cloth and wheeled abruptly off in another direction.

And he and Draco ate each other's tonsils with fragile abandon right there in full view of the restaurant's occupants; exchanged wordless murmurs ("Didn't mean to—', 'Would never have let you!', 'Fucking love you, you wanker!') and moist reminders of why, exactly, it never, ever ended. Harry snogged the smirk—maybe it was still a bit wobbly 'round the edges, yes, but delightfully present and accounted for—and thanked his lucky stars he understood that, without telling. Well…only the occasional telling. Reminders—that was it, what these were. These little blips in his happy existence.

For….never ended, never over. Not from start-pass go! at Malkin's, not from split-second judgmental refusals, not from stolen Remembralls, slinky Serpensortias and cocky teasing, taunting grins when badges flashed as brightly as the git's bared eyeteeth in passing—not for _anything_, ever. It was _not_ over, and Harry knowing Draco as Draco knowing Harry—it wouldn't be, couldn't be—not ever. And this was a damned fine thing, all 'round, as likely next time it would be him, Harry, storming out stiff-rumped and Draco trotting after, bleating 'Harry! Harry!' and looking a bit too bereft for even maybe Ron to bear watching.

…But in the meantime, they should likely Apparate home while they still could—being decent folk—and take their bloody escalating mutual passion off to a proper bed. Or so Harry's good sense said…but then, that was only a feeble, limp-wristed whisper, wasn't it? So much the better to shag out their relief –maybe in the loo, as it was handy.

There were, after all, other 'trendy hotspots' available just off Diagon. And it wouldn't be the first establishment they'd been tossed out of, either.


End file.
